Eric Church Says It Will Be ‘A While’ Before Next Album

Eric Church has started thinking about the followup to his 2014 The Outsiders album, but he says it will take some time to complete it.

"It takes me a while. And I was looking [at the calendar] the other day, it’s gonna be a while for me," Church reveals in a new interview with Rolling Stone, noting he probably won't have time to work on new music until summer.

Although he hasn't actually started working on his next release, Church has been spending plenty of time thinking about a musical direction for it. "I do feel like Outsiders is kind of our outlier album, no pun intended," he notes. "And it freed me up a little bit. I feel like it is kind of the crazy one and I kind of shook that tree a little bit. And I don’t know where we’re going next."

Regardless of what direction he chooses, Church says he isn't afraid to push boundaries and explore new musical directions, saying, "I’m just not scared to go really anywhere."

Adds the "Cold One" hitmaker, "I feel like we can chase a bunch of different things and it’d be cool to see what happens. I haven’t gotten to the studio yet, but that will be interesting, 'Do you wanna go nuttier or is it more tame, is it totally different, is it more subtle and stripped down? I don’t know, man. It's just one of those things that I don’t know till we get to the studio and we see what it all looks and sounds like."

Church is one artist who will forever fight the good fight in order to keep his uniqueness his own. Recently, the country star began a court battle with bootleggers over the unlicensed merch sales that were happening outside of his concerts. Hopefully, that has scared some of the wrongdoers away from his Outsiders tour, which is currently rolling around the globe. See dates here.